


Rifles for the Wraith

by Tassos



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-30
Updated: 2006-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag to Common Ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rifles for the Wraith

When John retakes the copilot’s seat, he feels Ronon’s eyes boring into the back of his head. The front cabin is silent; the back rumbles with the low voices of the Marines. Rodney’s hands jitter over the controls but it’s twenty seconds and they’re back on Atlantis.

He knows he’ll kill the Wraith if they meet again. And he knows he’ll regret it. John’s not sure which part of that he finds reassuring.

The Marines disembark and his team and Beckett wait for him before piling out. Confusion and disbelief are writ large on their faces, for more than just the transformation to grumpy old man and back. Rodney wants to say something, Beckett’s at a loss for words, Teyla’s judgment isn’t quite hidden, Ronon says it all in his eyes.

Elizabeth meets them in the bay, grasps John’s shoulder with a gasp and a wondering “How?”

“He escaped with the Wraith,” Ronon spits out before John can get a word in.

“He undid the aging,” Beckett finds his voice, laced with incomprehension still.

John shrugs and pastes a smile on his face. “We had a deal.”

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow. “With the Wraith? What about Kolya?”

“Fled the scene of the crime, no doubt to haunt us again sometime,” says Rodney.

“Sheppard let the Wraith go,” adds Ronon, low, angry. John looks at him and sees a fight in his future, definitely bruises, and wonders how the hell he’ll explain something he half understands himself. The silence draws out too long and Beckett covers by bustling him to the infirmary, his team trailing with Elizabeth, who John thinks he sees give him a nod in some form of understanding.

He finds Ronon later beating the hell out of a punching bag. He barely looks up when John circles around the room to lean on the window frame.

After a few minutes of watching he says, “I was dead if I stayed so I made a deal to get out. I didn’t shoot him, he didn’t eat me. He wasn’t big on the idea at first, but he stopped feeding on me when Kolya gave him free reign.”

“He could have drained you as soon as you were out.” Ronon throws two more punches and stopped. He doesn’t turn.

“Trust me, I was aware of that.”

“So you let him live?” Ronon faces him, tall, angry. “He was a Wraith. When they looked human you still managed to do the right thing.” Confused.

John stands up straight. “He gave me my life back. He didn’t have to.”

“He took it from you!” Ronon counters. “He should have given it back _and_ paid the penalty.” John doesn’t have a good answer for that either, except that they were both victims. “Now you let him go and he’ll kill more humans. Feed off more people.”

John thinks of bombs and collateral damage and looks away from Ronon’s accusing stare, his frustrated growl, and the sound of another punch to the bag. The Ancient glass makes odd bars across the floor. He thinks of how when you and your enemy are on the same side, they’re not quite an enemy ever again. “We made a deal to keep each other alive until we were off that planet,” John repeats, looking up. Almost hugging the bag, Ronon looks over at him, weary. “He kept his end of the bargain. I kept mine.” There’s a twisted honor in how the Wraith went about it, but John heard it when the Wraith said his name, and keeps it now when he still can’t bring himself to name the creature that stole his life.

“You almost died.”

“I didn’t.”

Ronon stares at him, inscrutable once more until he closes his eyes and sighs into the punching bag. “The only good Wraith is a dead Wraith.”

John doesn’t answer. He also doesn’t doubt that Ronon’s still angry with him, but the worst he thinks is past. John hates the Wraith, he does. Hates what they did to Sumner, to Teyla and the Athosians, to Ford, to Ronon, to the husks of worlds they’ve visited, to Atlantis and the people they’ve lost.

“Hey,” he says. “The knife throwing thing came in handy.” Ronon looks up and snorts at the comment with the closest thing to a smile John’s seen since they left for the ambush.

Most of all he hates that he might not hate this one Wraith.


End file.
